1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the neutralization of hazardous materials. More particularly, it pertains to methods of handling and processing various chemical compounds and biological agents as encountered in many different forms and applications.
2. Description of Related Art
A wide variety and tremendous amounts of extremely hazardous materials are in existence today. Such materials include by-products of industrial processes and materials associated with spent or obsolete hardware related to for example power, propulsion, or weapons systems. Hazardous materials associated with munitions often involve explosives which renders their handling for purposes of neutralization exceptionally difficult and dangerous.
Warehousing or otherwise stockpiling such materials may offer an apparently relatively safe course of action, but such disposition is nonetheless only a temporary one that must ultimately be addressed. Political pressures to deal with such problems sooner rather than later imparts a degree of urgency to the development of an effective and economical neutralization method. The recent developments respecting post-Cold War disarmament has rendered this problem especially acute as many hundreds of thousands of tons of conventional, chemical, and biological weaponry are now slated for neutralization and destruction under international agreement.
The ultimate solution is to neutralize the hazardous material in a manner that allows for its return to the environment in a thoroughly benign state. Current approaches to such a neutralization strategy typically involve high temperature incineration techniques. While this provides an effective means for dealing with some materials, it is by no means applicable to all materials, sometimes creates pollutants of even greater concern, may involve substantial safety risks, and when considering the cost of facilities necessary for the practice of such methods as well as the amounts of energy consumed by the process, high temperature incineration often comprises a prohibitively costly approach.
Specific disadvantages inherent in incineration techniques are exemplified by materials that yield combustion products that are in and of themselves hazardous and difficult to neutralize. Further, highly explosive materials may be ill-suited to exposure to elevated temperatures as reactions may proceed at uncontrollable rates. High temperature incineration can be very costly as it has been estimated that the neutralization of the tens of thousands of tons of a particular chemical agent used in chemical weapons currently slated for destruction by such method would cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars per ton. The destruction of lithium boilers used to propel torpedoes poses special problems unaddressable by high temperature incineration as the lithium is sealed within stainless steel containers and any contact with heat, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and/or water would result in an explosion.
The need therefore exists for a method for neutralizing a broad range of hazardous materials in a safe and economic manner. Such method must further provide for the processing of such materials in any of the variety of forms and environments in which they may be encountered.